


This Is Why We Fight

by ungoodpirate



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gap Filler, Mai-Centric, maiko, maikoweek, maikoweek2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 15:44:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8167319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: “Most days, Mai felt hollowed out and silenced, a puppet-like plaything for her parents or Azula, whoever she was useful to at the moment. Zuko treated her like a forest or an ocean, something with depth, something with majesty, something that took time and exploration to fathom.” 
Mai discovers that being in love is selfish and special, dangerous and a decision, painful and profound. Mai also discovers herself. 
-
A canon-compliant fic that chronicles Mai and Zuko’s relationship from the end of season two, across the time jump to season 3, and then to the end of the series, from Mai point of view.





	

**Author's Note:**

> When I saw it was Maiko week, I decided to finish this Maiko fic I had started a few months ago... It got longer than I intended, but I am happy with it. Rewatching the show a few months ago, I was struck by how we come back after a little time jump in book 3 to see Mai and Zuko in an established relationship. I wanted to explore how that developed, seeing as Zuko was banished when he was 13. The story, however, did not end up naturally ending there, so I continued along throughout season 3.
> 
> There are a few scenes where I recreated exact dialogue from the show. I am not claiming credit for that. I am intentionally recreating those scenes (from a different perspective) or sampling the dialogue for thematic reasons. I did not mark them specifically, but the dialogue used is from the episodes: The Awakening, The Boiling Rock Part 2, and Sozin's Comet Part 4.

Mai twirled a shuriken blade between her fingers as she looked at him. Twirling a blade was her version of a nervous fidget: dignified and dangerous. Like her, he had grown in their three years apart: taller, more muscular, the childish shape of his face turned harder-edged. And, of course, the scar. It was the the first time Mai had seen it other than in the few drawings on wanted posters she’d seen as she traipsed across the Earth Kingdom at Azula’s demand. The scar was less daunting than she’d expected even though it covered a good third of his face. 

In this ridiculous Kyoshi makeup and dress, Mai wasn’t looking how she’d prefer for the first time he saw her after three years. He wasn’t looking at her, though, which was… troubling. In fact, he didn’t seem to be looking anywhere except where his mind was stuck -- jaw grit, expression wrinkled -- even with all the good news Azula was monologuing. The Dai Li had been sent to take down the great walls of Ba Sing Se so the Fire Nation troops could enter the city, the Earth King had fled, the avatar was struck dead, and Zuko would be returning to the Fire Nation with them. Not as a prisoner, as had been the instructions of Azula’s original mission, but as a guest, as the Prince, returning with honor. 

Mai, draped sideways across the Earth King’s empty throne, twirling the blade, narrowed her eyes in examination. What was so he bothered about? 

Zuko turned, caught her looking, their gazes connecting. Mai wasn’t the little girl anymore who blushed when he passed by or paid her attention. His one eyebrow quirked downward in question. Her expression remained solid and solemn, invariably bored, all personality bred out of her by now. 

His eyes turned away first. Victory. Only then did Mai let her gaze lift from him, bounce coolly around the chamber, only to find Azula watching her in return, her expression knowing, her mouth curled in an unkind smirk. 

Mai looked away first. So what, Azula noticed. So what, Mai didn’t care. Her heart sped up anyway. This was something she wanted. This was something that could be taken away. 

…

That night, stayed in the best chambers of the palace, Ty Lee whispered to her, “So, are you excited Zuko is coming back with us?” and Mai shushed her. 

…

Their first night on the ship, still deep in the Earth Kingdom, Mai found him, at the tip of the bow, statue-like under the moonlight. 

She settled herself brush next to him. “What’re you looking at?” she asked. This was the first chance she had to speak to him alone. During the daylight hours, Azula was always around, always demanding Mai’s presence, or Zuko’s. 

His expression shifted, downwards, so he had heard her. 

Mai drew her finger across the railing, thinking. The metal was unnaturally warm. Zuko gripped the railing in front of himself, so perhaps that was his doing. 

“Remember the time you knocked me in a fountain?” she said.

“Azula had lit you on fire. I was saving you.”

So he spoke. 

The air, humid and earthy, danced around them, tugging at their sleeves and hem lines. 

“Remember the time Azula locked us in a closet,” Mai said. 

They had been twelve, a rare month were their ages overlapped. Azula, cruel and bored, had insisted on a new game, one of her invention. All Mai had known was she was supposed to stay in the supply closet Azula had picked until she came back. Mai obeyed, for even then Azula was a bully Mai knew better than to cross. 

After waiting what seemed a long, boring while in the closet, the door opened and someone was shoved in, into her. Then the lock clicked distinctly. 

Zuko had pounded on the inside of the closet door with a fist, shouting at and threatening his sister, if she didn’t open the door this instant -- 

Azula cackled and ran off. 

One would think a closet in the royal palace would be large. This one had shelves stuffed with folded linens and only a cramped narrow space between the shelves and the door. With two of them, it was stuffy, and even their breathing was loud. 

Zuko threatened to burn it down, but Mai caught his wrist as he raised his arm. 

“You’ll burn us with it,” she said. She knew enough of Azula’s firebending to appreciate how fast fire spread. 

“You have any better ideas?” Zuko said to her, yanking his arm free. 

Mai didn’t flinch under his easy anger. “Yes,” she said. “I do.”

They had to squeeze past each other in the cramped space so Mai could get closer to the lock. It was awkward, both of them so aware of their own body and each others in adolescence. Mai pulled out a knife from up her sleeve, stuck the edge of the blade into the lock and fiddled it around like her uncle had taught her. Eventually, the lock clicked, and the door was pushed open. They stumbled out into the fresh air and light of the hall, blinking like fresh fawns. 

“That was amazing!” Zuko exclaimed, easily. 

Mai shrugged. Seen but not heard, she wasn’t used to bragging. 

“It really --,” he started, but they both realized a truth at the same time. Despite being now freed to all the space in the Fire Nation palace, they still stood only a breath’s distance apart. Neither of them remedied it. 

That was there first kiss, in the hallway, a short, childlike press of closed mouth to closed mouth, but magnificent in what it signified: a beginning

Out of the memory, four and a half years later, at the bow of the ship, Zuko said, “I remember.”

“You know, there were some people who missed you.”

Mai leaned her elbow on the railing. It was a performance art, being the well-behaved daughter at every political and social climbing events of her parents. Along the way she’d picked up some things they hadn’t intended. 

She couldn’t say all she meant, but she could get Zuko to see it. 

She blinked. “I’m not talking about me, of course.” 

Mai could only hope he could read the teasing glint in her eye, the way she’d turned her body to face him, the littlest tilt of her head, the way she was clearly whispering into the undercurrent: I am talking about me. It was me. I missed you.

She blinked up at him, waiting. The engines grumbled beneath their feet. It wasn’t a quiet night, or a romantic setting. But they were both existing in the same place, within a breath’s proximity, again. And Zuko was looking at her like he was trying to translate her. 

She never said things plainly. She couldn’t. 

He came to a conclusion.

He kissed her, there in humid night, tentative and brief. Zuko fled immediately after, leaving Mai alone, gripping the rail, facing the horizon, but it was enough. It was a beginning.  
…

The second day into their voyage, Mai found Zuko practicing firebending forms on the deck. It was midafternoon. His arms were bare, as he wore only a vest. 

Mai crossed her arms, leaned against the pipe stack, and watched. 

His footing stuttered when he caught sight of her, out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t stop. 

Being friends with Azula, Mai had witnessed amazing firebending her whole life and now found it boring. Watching Zuko, the focused set of his face, the way his body moved, the definition in his arms, was not boring in the least. Mai bit the inside of her cheek to keep anything from showing. 

When he was done, he started towards her. His hair was loose, which was strange, although he was wearing fire nation colors again. 

“You want something?” he asked her. 

“I was just waiting for you to finish so I could practice.”

“Practice what?” 

With a twitch of the wrist, a blade slide into her hand from up her sleeve. She threw the blade; it flew solidly through the air, landing with a satisfying reverberation as the point stuck into the railing across the deck. 

Zuko looked from it, back to her. “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked in a tone that was impressed but not totally shocked. She appreciated that, that he wasn’t surprised by her potential. 

“My uncle,” she said. 

Her uncle never married or had any children, focusing instead on his military career, becoming the warden of the Fire Nation’s most secure prison, the Boiling Rock. For lack of his own family, he doted on Mai instead. As military man with no need for court manners, at every visit he taught her things her mother wouldn’t approve of. Lock picking, self defense, and -- the summer after Zuko was sent away -- knife throwing. Which she took to like a turtle-duck to a pond. He had been gifting her new knife sets for her birthdays ever since. 

Another blade dropped into her hand. She threw it, and it landed an inch apart from the first. 

“How many knives are you carrying?” he asked. 

Mai smirked, couldn’t help it. “More than you would guess.”

Zuko’s eyes crinkled like something close to a smile. But it was day time, and the deck was alive with crew at work. “Not here,” he said, the almost smile fading. 

Mai went and yanked out of her knives from the railing, then followed Zuko below deck.  
...

Zuko’s cabin was located just above the engines. With the door closed, the room was thick with heat. Mai fanned a hand at her neck to no effect. 

Azula had claimed the biggest cabin, the one meant for the captain, as they had claimed a warship for their journey home with no royal envoy available. Zuko’s cabin was private but sparse. A thin, raised pallet was the only furniture, so that’s where both of them sat, knees bumping as they angled toward each other.

It really wasn’t within the realm of decorum for a lady of her status to be alone on a bed with a boy, but ever since Azula had recruited her for this mission, she was also, in some ways, a soldier. They lived by different rules. 

Zuko asked after her parents, like that mattered, like he had suddenly remembered all the rules of court etiquette for a few minutes. He was surprised to find out she had acquired a little brother in his time away, but that was all the news she had to share. This polite, distant talk wasn’t what she had come in here for. 

She reached her hand up cup to right side -- the scarred side -- of his face, but he caught her wrist in his tight grip.

“Don’t,” he said, then dropped her hand. 

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck and down under her collar. 

“It bothers me,” Zuko said, eyes and head turned away. His loose hair falling down across his forehead. “It’s shameful.”

“I still think you’re handsome, if that matters.”

Voice rough: “It’s not my looks I care about.”

She leans in. “Does it hurt?” she said in her variation of a gentle whisper. 

 

“No,” he said. “Not anymore.” The way his face heated up, it was like he hadn’t intended that last bit. 

“How do you expect me to kiss you but never touch your scar?”

“I don’t expect anything from you.”

Her shoulders stiffened like a dog’s hackles being raised. “Then what am I even doing here? Am I just some distraction for you.”

“You’re the one who started all this.”

She stood, so sharp that Zuko jerked to keep her in his vision. 

“I’m not staying where I’m not wanted,” she said, starting for the door, pulse beating in her ears so loudly, she almost didn’t hear Zuko call after her. 

“Wait.” 

She paused and peeked over her shoulder. He’d have to do better than that. 

“Please sit back down.”

That was probably the best she’d get. She sat back down, stared at him coolly, waiting for him to prove himself. She wasn’t so easily melted. 

He took her hand in his, gently this time. She had a chance to feel the shape of the callous on his fingers as he lifted her hand towards his scar, so slowly. When he pressed her fingertips to it, his eyes shut and he let go.

The scar wasn’t so strange to the touch, but different than his normal skin. More leather-y perhaps. She brushed her fingers along the seams of his scar, up where it zig-zagged with the line of his hair, down over his misshapen ear. Then she dragged her fingers down to his jaw, tilted his face, so she could lean in and press a kiss right under his eye, right on the hard flush of the scar tissue. 

Zuko inhaled sharply.

“I don’t care,” she said again. 

Zuko looked at her then, as if she was the a river following in the ocean, or a rising sun over a mountain horizon, something bigger and more impressive than she could be as a single person. 

He took the hand he had guided to the scar, and he kissed her knuckles, her fingertips, the center of her palm. He pulled her close, and they laid nose-to-nose on the narrow space. His palm was warm on her waist, even through all her layers of clothes. 

They spent their time in silence, only half awake, until the evening drew late. As Mai got up from the pallet, Zuko asked her to stay. She petted his hair fondly. Silly boy. She couldn’t stay. She had a reputation to maintain.

Back in the second best cabin, Ty Lee hung upside from one of the pipes. She swung around and landed on her feet when Mai shut the door. 

“Where’ve you been?” she asked in a knowing way. 

“I’m on the same stupid ship on the same stupid river as you,” Mai replied. 

Her bed felt cold, though, and sleep evaded her, without someone beside her.

...

“So you and Zuzu…” There wasn’t a single thing that Azula said that didn’t sound, at best, a taunt, or, at worst, a threat. 

Mai had woken late, got dressed later, groggy as she pinned up her hair. Out in the corridors, she had been instantly assaulted by Azula’s smirking face as she rounded the first corner, blocking the path to canteen, door open just a handful of footsteps away. 

Mai wasn’t unaffected, but she had gotten a lot better at not showing it. She glanced at Ty Lee, posture shrunken, standing behind Azula’s shoulder. 

“Oh, don’t give Ty Lee that look. I mean, of course she told me you came in late last night. But I have eyes, Mai. I’ve seen what’s been going on between the two of you. You’re not exactly subtle.” 

Mai said nothing. With Azula, one wasn’t always required to. She had the power of making people listen to her, whether they wanted to or not.

“I’m actually impressed,” Azula went on. “Father hasn’t even reinstated Zuko’s title yet, and you’re already social climbing. Your mother would be proud.” 

“I need to get breakfast,” Mai said as a stoic announcement, and brushed past Azula which was approximately as dangerous as walking by the nest of an aggravated rat-viper.

In the canteen, Mai saw when she entered, in a way that made the morning even heavier, was Zuko. Azula had probably known, when she confronted Mai just outside the open door, wanted to be overheard, had hoped to bait Mai into saying something. 

“She’s right, you know,” Zuko said. 

Mai crossed the room, plucked an apple from a barrel. So short into their trip, the food was still fresh. She ran her thumb over the smooth skin until it snagged on a bruise. 

“I don’t know if my father will reinstate my title, or my honor. I don’t know if I’ll be the a crown prince, or a prince at all.”

Mai replaced the apple back from where she had plucked it, stomach soured to hunger. 

“I’m not after your crown, Zuko.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be banished again as soon as I return. I don’t know if I’ll be imprisoned… I don’t -- I don’t want to drag you down with me.” 

“How admirable,” Mai said dryly. “Luckily I can make decisions for myself, and what I’m willing to risk.” She leaned over the table, palms pressed flat to the surface, voice cut to it’s quietest in case Azula was still lurking. “Are we really going to let something Azula said ruin this? Everything she says has an agenda.”

“She’s your friend,” Zuko said, challenging her criticism. 

“She’s your sister.” 

A tense second, then Zuko laughed. It made him look lighter and younger, the serious scowl for once absent off his face. 

“Azula’s manipulations are one thing I didn’t miss,” Zuko said. “I missed you.” It had taken days after Mai had said it first, but here it was now. “I mean, I missed a lot of thing. But you were one of them. I didn’t think I’d get you back.”

She raised one eyebrow, and that’s all she needed to do. 

“I thought someone would’ve swept you off your feet by now.”

“I’m not easily impressed.”

“No?”

“Not at all.”

This was a new dance they were engaging in, both dangerous and fun, not knowing where the next step would land. They may have shared a shy affection in their youth, but now something was ignited. 

It was how they ended up returned to the privacy of Zuko’s cabin, kissing with a desperation neither of them were practiced in. Although both of them were fully clothed, being held flush up against Zuko’s body felt forbidden. 

Contrary to Azula’s statement, this wasn’t the type of social climbing her mother would be proud of. Both of her parents were moderates. They didn’t plan twisted plots to the top, they didn’t associate with controversial figures, they aimed to stay in favor with compliance and compliments and the trading of favors, and the value of a good name. 

Mai just wanted to take, and be consumed in return. If Zuko was to be crown prince again, she’d claim him first. If not, she’d have what she could of him, in the time allowed. 

…

In the next few days, Zuko loosened up. He didn’t hide from the rest of them. And he was affectionate with her in public, in little ways. He touched her shoulder to get her attention. They held hands under table at meals. Azula watched them, cataloguing.

The day they reached the end of the Earth Kingdom, facing out to the open sea, Zuko stood at the tip of the bow, looking outward at the stretch of the naked horizon, the air salty. 

“I’m going home,” he said, voice catching, sounding young, like the voice of the Zuko who had left her three years ago. Mai wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, resting her cheek against the back of his shoulder. 

For a while, nothing, just his long hair tickling her nose and the scent of him. Then, he placed his hand over her hers, where they were knotted together on his stomach. She panted a breathe of relief against his neck. 

After a while, realizing this vigil wouldn’t soon be ended so soon, and that there were some things that a person had to face on their own, Mai left him there, dragging herself away. 

Of course, Azula was there when she turned around, halfway back on the deck, an ever-presence. Mai went over to her, like the tide pulled by the moon. One didn’t ignore their most dangerous friend. 

“I’m really surprised by you, Mai,” Azula said, arms crossed. “I expected more from you than to be a silly, lovesick girl. You don’t even know what will become of him yet.” She said that last part with too much glee. 

“Are you really bringing him all this way just to ruin him?” Because if that was the case, Mai should push him overboard now, when he could still swim back to Earth Kingdom’s shore and some kind of freedom. 

“Oh, he can do that by himself,” Azula said. She brandished a scroll Mai had overlooked until now. “Actually, a royal messenger hawk arrived this morning, having hoped itself from ship to ship all the way across the ocean. Father heard of our victory in Ba Sing Se and has decided to welcome Zuko back with open arms.”

She took in a slow breath of the salty, ocean air. “Does he know?”

“I thought I might tell him over dinner. Don’t spoil it for me.” And that suggestion was actually a command. 

Mai gripped a fist at her side, nails digging into her palm. “Whatever,” she said, as emotionless as possible, an agreement to Azula’s demands as much as she hated it. 

Victory flashed behind Azula’s golden eyes. This had been a test to prove what Azula needed to know. That Zuko may have Mai lovesick, but Azula was still the one in control. 

…

Their third day out to sea, they were struck by a storm. Below deck, the ship rocked in a way that made Mai both nauseous and dizzy. Zuko held her steady in his arms, leaned back on his pallet.

“How are you fine right now?” she asked with a little anger at being the only one so afflicted by the rough waters. 

Zuko brushed a kiss to her forehead, on the slip of skin beside her bangs. “I spent most of three years on a boat,” he said. “I got my sea legs.” 

“Oh, right.” Head laid on his chest, she could hear his heart beating at a reassuring pace. “Was it lonely?” 

He was quiet for a while, considering. Mai had to wonder if he had the same answer as her. That his whole life had been kind of lonely. Like she, all he had was his parents and a few friends they approved, and a lot of expectations. That he could only hope to carve a life for himself out of it. 

“I guess,” he said, finally. “I had the crew, and my…”

“Your uncle?” she volunteered when he didn’t finish. The ship swayed. Her stomach clenched. His muscles tensed. 

She played with the clasp on the the front of his tunic. Waiting. Wondering if it was selfish or wrong or her being a silly, lovesick girl to want to be enough for someone, all by herself. 

Most days, Mai felt hollowed out and silenced, a puppet-like plaything for her parents or Azula, whoever she was useful to at the moment. Zuko treated her like a forest or an ocean, something with depth, something with majesty, something that took time and exploration to fathom. 

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said. 

She nodded against him. The clothe of his tunic was smooth, new. He looked good in Fire Nation colors, distinguished and prince-like.

She stayed with him, in his cabin, that night, forgetting to care about what it may look like, what rumors it could seed. She wanted to feel secure in an unsteady world for a little longer. 

…

The night before they were slated to return to the Fire Nation, Zuko was absent from his cabin when she went to find him. Mai was eager to get off this boat, and into a proper bed, and maybe even was a little homesick. But she also knew that Zuko’s responsibilities as a Prince, as soon as they made it to land, would slice down the amount of time they would be able to spend together. 

She found him on deck, the full moon giving plenty of light, the air chilly. 

“Aren’t you cold?” she asked as a way to announce herself, and perhaps to lead the conversation toward him coming back to his cabin with her. 

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he said. “It’s been so long. Over three years since I was home. I wonder what’s changed. I wonder how I’ve changed.”

It was an improvement, not descending into an argument for him just to admit what was preoccupying him. 

She yawned. “I just asked if you were cold. I didn’t ask for your whole life story.” She was just intended to tease him, to lighten the mood. But he scowled instead, turned his head away. 

So he stepped closer, wrapped an arm across on shoulder, and used her free hand to tilt his head back in her direction. “Stop worrying,” she told him. They kissed. 

She left him there with his thoughts and went to bed her in her and Ty Lee’s shared room. Regretting, maybe that she didn’t tell him the things she saw in him that had changed. That she had wondered the same thing when they were reunited in Ba Sing Se, about both of them. And what she had concluded. That it was more than his height or his scar. That was he older, sadder, but kinder too. 

Maybe she should’ve told him. She wouldn’t be brave enough to bring it up herself at some later time. 

“Are you going to be happy to be home?” Ty Lee asked into the darkness as they both lay on their separate beds, not sleeping. She asked this even though the capital hadn’t been where either of them had been living when Azula had recruited them. 

“I suppose.” 

“Are you going to marry Zuko and become the Fire Lady?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Mai rolled to face the wall.

“You two are really cute together,” Ty Lee said. Mai wasn’t sure if this were true. They were both good-looking in an aristocratic way, but neither of them were particularly charming. Cute was a sketch, but this was Ty Lee.

“Thanks, I guess.”

Ty Lee said, “The four of us, in the capital… it kinda feels like home.”

…

That idea of home settled unsteady in the back of Mai’s mind for several weeks. Home wasn’t a building, or a city, or a nation. It was people, and the place of comfort you had among them. Knowing you’re wanted. Knowing you’re loved. 

But when that knowing is tugged out beneath your feet like a trap, and suddenly you’re falling...

Mai’s hands shook as she reread Zuko’s scroll for the fifth time. She didn’t appreciate this lack of composure from her own body, even in absolute private. It was like she had been poisoned, like she was being betrayed from the inside out. 

Mai hadn’t been old enough or important enough to see Zuko’s Agni Kai against the Fire Lord. Nor important enough to see him in the infirmary, or see him off at the docks. So the last time she saw Zuko had been indistinctly before that whole rockslide of incidents. She hadn’t known the last time she had seen him was the last time she would see him until it was much too late. 

Like now, reading the scroll he had left her, she hadn’t known. This time was worse. He had left her by choice. 

Mai re-rolled the scroll evenly, set it on her lap. They had a few good weeks. Picnics, sleepovers, beach trips. There had been a few fights. Zuko growing angier, growing distant. Perhaps those should’ve been signs. Now he was gone, off on some traitorous mission, leaving her nothing but a note and a wrung-out heart. Alone. 

Her parents were across the ocean, governing Omashu. Azula was busy plotting, proud of her successes during the failed eclipse invasion. Ty Lee was… somewhere. Not here. 

All she wanted to be was enough for someone to stay. 

She tucked the scroll away in a hidden pocket inside her garments, like the many pockets used for many weapons. She was keeping it for her eyes only, as it was intended. She wouldn’t give up this pain to royals, or generals, or politicians, to be deciphered as evidence of Zuko’s treason. 

It was her own damn fault, for becoming one of those silly, lovesick girls she hated, for dreaming too big, for wanting too much and believing she’d keep it. This is why it was easy to follow along with the people that pulled her puppet strings. Less risk, less consequence, less pain. 

…

Mai dipped her fingers into the fountain as she had many times see Fire Lady Ursa do back in childhood. The turtle-ducks came paddling over, but she had no bread to feed them. 

“There you are, Mai.”

Mai stood at the sound of Azula’s voice, as she came marching into the courtyard. 

“You asked me here,” she replied flatly. 

“You know about Zuko, of course,” Azula said in a mockery of sympathy. 

Mai blinked once as her only response. Azula didn’t deserve to see her pain.

“Don’t worry. None of us think you’re a traitor too.”

In solid monotone, “What a relief.” 

“I suppose now you’ll have to find something useful to do with yourself.” 

“I suppose.” 

Azula’s eyes narrowed. She had wanted more than this when she had summoned Mai here, but Mai wasn’t going to give it to her. She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t reveal the scroll. She wouldn’t gripe about Zuko’s lackluster qualities. Instead, she blinked, and gave the barest answers required. She could keep the rest for herself. Herself. A whole person. She could be enough for at least herself. 

…

She lived alone in a large manner, with only silent-stepped servants and shutters that creaked in the wind. 

Then news came from her uncle. Zuko, at the Boiling Rock. And they were off on a mission again.

…

If she thought there would be satisfaction from confronting Zuko about ripping her still beating heart out of her chest and then abandoning her, it wasn’t what she thought. He was apologetic, but he wasn’t angry or sad. He seemed so sure of the path he was taking. And then he locked her in a cell. 

She banged on the door with her fist until a knuckle split, then kicked it for good measure. There was no lock to be picked. She would have to wait to be discovered and rescued. She hated it. 

Especially because she didn’t want to miss her chance to get her hands on Zuko. She wanted to rip his hair out. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to… help him? 

Seeing him in prison garb, she wasn’t fond of it. She was fond of his new confidence, the ease he had in his beliefs. 

Mai had never really believed in anything. Growing up with her parents, the simpering politicians, had revealed to her very young, the fakeness and the performance that was most of life, including the climb for power. Her loyalty to Azula was built on fear rather than affection or admiration or respect. 

‘I’m trying to save country,’ Zuko had said, impassioned. What was worth fighting for? Committing treason for? What was worth it, for Mai? 

A soldier came running past and Mai shouted for his attention, and for him to get her out of here. 

“There’s a riot going on right now, Ma’am,” the soldier said as he unlatched the door. Mai pushed out as soon as she was given the room.

“I don’t care.”

She cared a lot. 

Once she was on courtyard level, she only had seconds to asses. People escaping on the gondola. The lines being cut. 

What was worth fighting for? What did she believe in?

…

After Zuko escaped, when Azula confronted her, Mai had the words to explain: “I love Zuko more than I fear you.” It was like a call to revolution. 

She didn’t expect to win the fight against Azula. She didn’t expect Ty Lee to choose her. 

Mai got locked in prison cell for a second time that day.

One would never think someone in a prison cell could be so happy, but for the first time in her life, Mai felt like she was breathing free air. 

…

Her cell was hotter and more humid than Zuko’s cabin above the ship’s engines had been. The steel walls were the same though. Mai had a lot of affection for that unimpressive room, where the beginnings of their relationship had taken place. 

“Mai, what were you thinking?” her uncle asked. Her uncle, who had willing to die to protect the integrity of his prison, where no one had ever before been able to escape. 

“I love him,” she said. Her uncle sighed. She knew what she sounded like. A silly, lovesick girl. 

But it about more than Zuko. It was about herself. Taking a stand. Drawing a line in the sand. She did this for herself, for what she wanted, for what she believed in. It was liberating. She had cut herself free from her strings. 

“I’m going to try and trade some favors and get you out of here. I don’t know how long it will take.” When he stood, he groaned. It was like failure had aged him.

That night, from the cell next door, Ty Lee said, “You really love him?”

Mai pressed her back against the wall, arms wrapped around her front, pretending it was someone else’s warmth, someone else’s arms. 

“Yes.”

“Wow.” 

Mai leaned her head back against the wall shared between their two cells.

“Why did you do it? Attack Azula?” Mai asked. She could imagination Ty Lee shuddering, but that was all in her mind. 

“You’re my friend, Mai,” Ty Lee said. “I didn’t want Azula to hurt you. And Azula was going to hurt you.” 

“Thank you,” Mai said, not something she had a lot of practice in saying. She supposed Ty Lee had her own little revolution in the courtyard as well. 

Then, sarcastic in a way Mai was impressed to discover Ty Lee had in her, Ty Lee said, “Sure. Anytime.”

…

The world changed in the space of a day. A generations-old war ended. Calls for fighting and victory changed to calls for peace and reconciliation. Fire Lord Ozai was out of power; Zuko, her Zuko, was to be the new Fire Lord. Mai was freed from the house arrest her uncle had secured for her, mostly do to the guards abandoning their posts in the turmoil of the day of the Sozin’s Comet.

She found Zuko in the palace, struggling with his clothes with a bandage around his torso. 

“You need some help with that?” she said, leaning in the doorway. He smiled when he saw her, surprised and pleased. It was easy, from that point, to slide back into what they had built before he left. To help him into his robe, to call him her boyfriend, to threaten him to never break up with her again, to lean onto his shoulder and let him hold her. 

After the coronation, lounged in his bedroom, propped against the pile of feather-light pillows, Zuko told her about everything that happened since he left and joined the Avatar. Including how he had collected his newest injury. A lightning hit, especially by someone like Azula, wasn’t to be taken lightly. 

His robes were untied, hanging loose from his shoulders. Mai touched his bandaged side delicately. “Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be okay.” He lifted a hand to touch her face. “Will we be okay?”

Earlier, he had asked if she didn’t hate him anymore. A stupid question. As angry and hurt as she had been, she’d never hated him. 

“We could be,” she said. Because she was a little wiser now than she had been. She loved him, no matter what, but worldly circumstances had conspired against them quite a bit. For right now, the spirits seemed to be on their side. 

“We’re in process,” she said. Anyway, she didn’t want a status quo with him. She wanted the journey. 

He grinned at her, affectionately.

“You’re Fire Lord now,” she teased. “You could have any girl in the country.”

“You know I only want you.”

Mai snuggled close on his shoulder. “Yes, I know. But it’s nice to hear.”

“I love you,” he said. 

Mai’s hand dragged over his bandage, the only sign she hadn’t fallen asleep, she was so still and quiet now. 

“I want you to know,” Zuko said, “When I left to join the Avatar, I knew it was the right thing to do. The only thing I regretted leaving behind was you. You were the only thing that made it difficult. And I love you, Mai. So much.”

The future before them was anything but sure. Just months ago Zuko was an exile, and now he had a country to run. He had a part to play in healing a damaged world. And Mai -- the world her parents had spent so long scaling had been torn down under their feet. The bully that had reigned over Mai’s life had been knocked from power. Possibilities were wide open. Maybe they had always been, and she had just been too young, and her vision too shaded, to know it. 

Yet here they were, choosing each other. A little better, a little happier, a little stronger, for it. 

“I love you,” she said, quieter than she felt it. It felt like a shout from a mountaintop.

This wasn’t lovesickness and it wasn’t silly. It was profound, worth fighting for.


End file.
